Café La Maze

I bet this is like doing lunch at Musso and Frank’s in Hollywood. You’re eating the legend as much as the steak. Marcel Lamaze, friend to the stars, built this in 1940 as a halfway house for Hollywood en route to TJ’s Caliente Racetrack. It still has a hidden gambling room upstairs.

Seventy years later, the classic steakhouse with its full cocktail bar and half-round red booths doing a waltz around the big room is intact and fashionable again.

They have live jazz Thursdays onward, with a big following. Tonight, Monday, I sit back to soak up Ron Bell on the guitar. Only thing missing is Marcel, table-hopping, schmoozing with his French accent.